Wind River® provides the industry's most proven platform for unmanned systems. Our contributions to the field of unmanned systems have resulted in some of the most significant moments of our thirty year history. From our collaboration with NASA JPL on their exploratory missions on Mars to the role our technology plays in the latest generation of autonomous aircraft, Wind River is proud to have partnered with the innovative companies and institutions that are advancing our understanding of robotics, unmanned avionics, the world we live in, and beyond.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Curiosity is the most sophisticated autonomous robotic spacecraft ever created. Using Wind River Workbench for development and debugging, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) team was able to bring Curiosity to life. Now that Curiosity is safely on the Martian surface, VxWorks® real-time operating system (RTOS) is controlling such mission-critical tasks as ground operations, data collection, and Mars-to-Earth communication.

NASA

Robonaut, the First Humanoid Robot in Space

Robonaut 2, or R2, which launched to the International Space Station on the space shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-133 mission, is the first dexterous humanoid robot in space. The computing environment chosen for the Robonaut project includes several state-of-the-art technologies. R2 uses the VxWorks RTOS to support varied development activities.

Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman X-47B Achieves Historic Catapult Launch and Landing

On July 10, as part of its Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) program, the U.S. Navy completed the landing of an unmanned aircraft on a carrier ship, which followed the catapult launch that took place on May 14—both events the first of their kind in aviation history. Developed by Northrop Grumman, the X-47B is the first tailless, autonomous unmanned aircraft for carrier operations. And Wind River VxWorks is its primary computing environment.

Dassault Aviation

Europe's nEUROn UCAV Demonstrator Makes Its Maiden Flight

The nEUROn Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator, the first large-size stealth platform designed in Europe, successfully completed its maiden flight on December 2, 2012. nEUROn was designed and produced by six European nations (France, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland) with the significant objective of demonstrating the maturity of technologies by delivering modular safety critical avionics systems running on COTS-based on-board computers—and standardized on the Wind River VxWorks 653 operating system.

KUKA

KUKA Revolutionizes Robots

KUKA, a leading robot manufacturer, uses Wind River on multi-core platforms to develop their revolutionary KRC4 controller. Building upon the proven reliability and breakthrough performance of VxWorks, the KUKA team was able to deliver their product on time and reduce risk during development.

MBARI

MBARI Breaking New Ground with Integrated Unmanned Submersible Research Platforms

In 1996, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) designed and built the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Tiburon, the most sophisticated all-electric ROV used for ocean science. ROV Tiburon broke new ground in providing an integrated unmanned submersible research platform with many powerful features that provided efficient, reliable, and precise sampling and data collection in a wide range of missions.
Retired in 2008, ROV Tiburon was replaced with a more powerful ROV, the Doc Ricketts. On February 24, 2009, ROV Doc Ricketts made its first research dive. All powered by Wind River VxWorks.